Headphones
by lespetitesmorts
Summary: I saw a little boy at a concert with these really big headphones on, sitting next to his mom, and it just screamed Bechloe to me.


Honest to God, it wasn't Beca's idea for their son's first concert to happen at age six. In fact, when he'd brought it up, Beca had said no flat-out, and then told him to finish his dumplings if he wanted strawberries for dessert.

Chloe had approached her that night, the two of them sitting on the bed, asking why Carter thought Beca was against live music. She'd sounded scandalized at the very idea, knowing exactly how much Beca loved music, and loved both playing and listening to it live.

With a sigh, Beca had explained the situation and Chloe had listened through the rather quick recounting quietly.

"Why not, Becs?" Chloe had asked a short moment later.

"Chlo!" Beca had answered, horrified. "Firstly, it's too loud, it'll be too late for him, and for heaven's sake, we probably shouldn't have let him listen to Halsey in the first place!"

Smirking, Chloe had raised one eyebrow at her wife, "Beca, we listen to her all the time. She's one of our faves."

Beca had gotten up and paced around their bedroom, "I know exactly where he got the enjoyment, Chlo, but maybe we shouldn't have exposed him so young. The themes are too mature for his age…"

With a light chuckle, Chloe had followed Beca off the bed and wrapping her arms around Beca's neck, she'd said, "You and I both know that if all he listened to was Kidz Bop, children's choirs, and the Wiggles, you would have had a meltdown. It's music right? Music's not wrong."

Beca had tensed to fight, but ultimately sagged against Chloe. "I know you're right, but I worry about him. We're already unconventional parents, Chlo—"

"—And a more fully-developed musical palate won't change that, sweetheart," Chloe had insisted gently. "Besides, he knows we're both planning to go. Now we won't have to pay a babysitter."

So that's how Beca found her family filing through the arena doors, surrounded by stereotypically queerly-dressed youths, shuffling her son along and trying to keep him from getting caught underfoot the throng.

"You should've let me use the stage entrance," she whispered to Chloe, pulling Carter back before he could be run over by three teenage girls.

Chloe gripped Beca's hand tighter. "We can just be normal sometimes, Becs, besides, it's his first concert. I'm sure he'll have plenty opportunities to see it from other points of view. But this was how we both saw our first concerts."

Beca grumbled a little about her first concert requiring her to sneak into a rundown bar while underage, but Chloe pretended like she couldn't hear it.

"There's a lot of people here," Carter piped up, sounding smaller than usual.

Immediately, Beca and Chloe moved to the side of the corridor and knelt down beside him. "You okay, buddy?" Beca asked, getting eye level with her son. His eyes darted back and forth between his moms, and then he nodded.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"You sure, bean?" Chloe asked, just to be sure. He nodded again. "Okay, well, we're almost to our seats," Chloe assured him, and she and Beca stood back up to face the crowds again.

"Yeah, we just have a couple more sections to pass," Beca said, pointing up at the section number in bright neon above them.

"We're in 113?" Carter asked, concentrating on the sign above them.

"You bet," Chloe answered.

Carter stared at the sign for another couple of seconds. "So three more to go?"

Beca leaned down for a high five. "Nice job, bud."

Grinning shyly, Carter quickly slapped the hand and then pulled Beca and Chloe along the hallway. "Come on, I wanna see Ashley!"

"Her artist name is Halsey!" Beca tried to correct him, but he shrugged with his back to them and kept walking determinedly.

"That's what you get for introducing her by her real name, sweetcheeks," Chloe said, smiling.

Beca spun so fast her head almost spun. "Hey! I said never to use that nickname again!"

Playfully, Chloe said, "Fight me," adding in a flirtatious wink.

Beca could feel her face redden at the comment. "Later," she promised. Then she was being tugged to her left. They'd finally made it to 113.

Carter climbed up the stairs, gripping both parents' hands for support as he went. When they greeted the usher at the top, Beca held out their tickets, and the barely twenty-something escorted them to their row.

While Chloe had vetoed Beca's offers of backstage seating, VIP seating, and their own personal suite, she did relent and allow Beca to purchase the seats on either side of their family's three. Just to make sure they didn't disrupt anyone else's time, avoided candid amateur paparazzi, and had a little more room to dance.

"I swear these chairs get skinnier every time I go to a show," Beca said to Chloe as they figured out which chairs were theirs.

Chloe just shrugged. "That's capitalism, babe."

Beca rolled her eyes and held down the seat that was going to be Carter's as Chloe sat down on the other side of him.

"Here you go, bud," Beca said, patting the chair with her other hand. He climbed onto it and immediately shrugged out of his jacket. He placed it in Beca's lap and then scrambled to find a comfortable spot.

As Beca was letting go of the seat, almost instantaneously it started folding back up. She pushed down on it again, and then slid her leg so her knee held it down by the corner. She knew Carter would be sad that he wasn't big enough if he noticed either of his moms blatantly holding his seat down.

"Did we miss the opener?" Chloe asked over Carter's head as she fixed the collar on his shirt.

Beca checked her watch. "Oops, yeah. I think it was Cashmere Cat, though, so we'd be forgiven."

"Still," Chloe said, pouting faintly. "It's just rude."

"I know, Chlo, but at least he'll get to hear Halsey first and she'll truly be his first concert."

Chloe looked somewhat placated by the idea, but Beca could tell she was still pensive.

"Are they in your bag or mine?" Beca asked, looking around for their purses.

"Mine," Chloe answered, ruffling Carter's hair and then leaning down to pull them out.

"Mama, why did you bring your headphones?" Carter asked, eyeing Beca's favourite pair in Choe's hands.

"Well, bean, concerts get very loud and we don't want your ears to hurt because of it. So Mama thought you could look after her headphones throughout the show by keeping them right here," Chloe smiled, tapping him with a finger on his head. He giggled.

"I can do that!" He said happily.

Chloe sent Beca a look over their son's head that clearly said _told you so_. Beca rolled her eyes with an indulgent smile and reached over to hold Chloe's hand.

The lights dimmed and the arena's playlist faded out.

"Okay, Carter," Beca leaned down to speak into his ear as the crowd erupted into screams and shouts around them. "Put them on please."

He pulled them on over his ears as the music for "Castle" filtered through the arena speakers. When Halsey finally appeared on stage, bright and sparkling in the stage lights, Beca found herself watching her son instead of her friend. His mouth dropped open when Halsey started singing, his eyes going wide at the spectacle of it all. When she held a particularly high, long, and note in vibrato, she watched his lips clearly form a "wow."

Beca's eyes met Chloe's overtop their son's head. They were both a little watery, both a lot proud of the human their son was turning out to be. Beca squeezed Chloe's hand tightly only to have Chloe squeeze back just as hard.

Together, they turned back and faced the music.


End file.
